There are 2 things that a tank must do: Keep hate and mitigate damage. Anything else that it can do is a bonus.

Today, /nin is the rule because it does both things better than blood tanking. PLD can easily cap hate, loosing shadows looses you less hate than loosing health, and it is fairly difficult to mitigate more than 100% of damage. Well, its not really 100%, but I will get into specifics below.

For blood tanking to work, it must do one or both of those jobs better than /nin. Lets take a look at the challenge, shall we?

1) Keep Hate - This is actually not so hard. If SE keeps up with introducing items that reduce the amount of hate lost when getting hit, it is somewhat easy to do. If it can reach 80~100% reduction on enmity reduction, then it should be on par with /nin on enmity lost. The culprit here is the fact that hate can be capped, and PLD has a fairly easy job doing so if it isnt loosing huge amounts of hate. Once you cap hate and loose only little every time you get hit, you are keeping hate in FFXI.

The hate cap and the fact that PLD/NIN can reach and mantain it also means that it is impossible to keep hate better than a PLD/NIN can. The best a blood tanking PLD can hope to acomplish is to get to hate cap and maitain hate very close to it - exactly the same as a PLD/NIN does today. That means that to be viable, it must mitigate damage at least as well as PLD/NIN.

2) Mitigate damage - Here is the big challenge. For one simple reason: Utsusemi is overpowered.

Ever since its launch Utsusemi has been overpowered. It had several nerfs applied to it, and it is still overpowered. The fault is not just the design of the spell - the fact that defense and VIT do very little to reduce incoming damage is a factor too.

Lets not turn this into a Utsusemi rant. Lets just see how much damage reduction is needed to compare to Utsusemi.

On Physical attacks - Its not happening. Unless the mob triple attacks like mad, or has a hundred fist like speed, Utsusemi has 100% damage mitigation here. When the mobs has either multiple attacks per round or attacks lightning fast, Utsusemi advantage is much smaller. But it is still 100% damage reduction anytime it is up.

There is also another factor that we must consider: If the mob triple attacks like mad or has hundred fists like speed, it might be worth to tank is as something/SAM with Seigan + Third Eye. TE has instant recast, 100% physical damage mitigation while it is up and a chance to stay up for quite a few attacks. If you can get utsu NI up almost twice every 30 seconds, Seigan + TE might absorb more damage than Utsu.

TP Moves:

There are 3 kinds of TP moves:

#1 The ones that take shadows off utsusemi and have their damage reduced by it. These are the most common moves. Things like Pecking Fury, Sickle Slash, etc. Unless it is a 3-4 or more hit move, it is again quite hard to compete with Utsusemi's effectiveness against these.

#2 The ones that ignore utsusemi and dont take shadows off. Few of these around only. Siphon Discharge, for exemple. Utsusemi is completely useless against those, but will still protect you from the follow up physical attacks. On this case, PDT might win depending on how strong are the follow up physical attacks.

#3 The ones that ignore utsusemi and take off shadows. Any -ga spell does this. Utsusemi is useless against them, and you are not protected from follow up attacks. PDT wins hands down here.

On all but the last case, Utsu has one advantage: There are few surprises. Suppose a paladin is subject to this, for example: Critical hit, Tp move, Critical hit. Having Utsu up will protect the user for the first critical if it is a Type #3 move. From both the first and last criticals if it is a type #2. And from the first critical and part of the TP move if it is a Type #1. After the 2nd critical, there is time to recast utsu, or even try casting Utsu Ichi.

On a pdt set, you are subject to all that damage. Yes, the damage will be reduced by your pdt, but can a paladin survive that sequence of hits from a mob today?

Lets get a example: Minhocao does hit a decently geared PLD for 450ish damage. Criticals are around 700. Even with 50% pdt, that means a PLD must be able to take 700 damage + Tp move and stay alive long enough for a Cure V to land. Another hit between o*hit moment and we are looking at 1k HP + tp move lost before a WHM has time to land a cure. That is a lot of HPs. I know that Minhocao isnt exaclty a light hitter, but it isnt by far the hardest hitting mob around.

Conclusion

It is very hard to compare a blood tank with a Utsu tank because of the way different attack speeds, rates of double/triple attack and damage per hit work on final fantasy XI. But i believe that even if PLD had ready acess to 50% pdt, the amount of damage reduction that Utsusemi provides on current NMs is better than what a pure pdt set would provide. And that only even comes into question if said blood tanking PLD can loose almost no hate from getting hit in the first place.

IE: I think that unless SE mess up with the damage high end NMs deal or the way Utsusemi works, even a 50% PDT PLD that doesnt loose hate when he gets hit will have a hard time comparing itself to a PLD/NIN. And messing with the way Utsusemi works TODAY is about as healthy to FFXI as turning off the switches on the servers.

Also, said PLD/NIN can get 50% PDT if the PLD/ANYTHING blood tank can. Plus Shadows.

Your thoughts?

Edited, Sep 10th 2010 1:32pm by TheKhory

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Khory

TybudX wrote:

The hardest part of this game is finding 5-17 other people who aren't retarded.

I think SE is trying to give us more options so we AREN'T going PLD/NIN so often. The problem is that they nerfed the only other subjob that could compete (/RDM) by reducing the hate tools that it had. PLD/NIN had an advantage that you could increase your hate load by using solid DD gear when shadows were up. PLD/RDM lost that advantage due to the fact that you're still taking damage, it's just going to Stoneskin first. Phalanx helps, but given the damage intake we get, it's not doing enough. The extra hate tools from the /RDM spells simply helped make up for the fact we couldn't use the DD gear that /NIN allows.

The big comparison should be in the amount of enmity loss reduction we see from the new gear. If we can get to the point that taking damage reduces the same amount of enmity that losing a shadow does, then we can switch subjobs with a lot less concern. There still IS a concern - taking damage means someone has to heal that, whether it is us or the support line behind us. Shadows are best because it reduces the damage completely at a constant rate. No one has to cure the damage (would be a slightly bad thing for us if we couldn't use Cure Cheat macros, of course, but we can, so it's only an advantage).

In the end, the mp to keep us up is the important part. Shadows alleviate that better than anything else possibly can. That's why /NIN will have such a strong advantage and will continue to have the advantage. If your support line is willing, however, a person won't be locked into /NIN so often as they are now. And, those few shells that still only use PLD/WARs for everything (yes, even in 2010, they exist....) are going to get more bang for their buck with the changes to blood tanking.

Also, I agree that changing Utsusemi at this point would be a loss for the game - it's too established. I think adjustments could be made to the fSTR formulas in such a way as to benefit the players, however. Maybe if you can make fSTR negative enough (having a much higher VIT than the mobs' STR), you could affect the mobs base damage at a much higher level. Mobs have insane base damage as it is - making it so that VIT shows a (if only slight) difference in damage taken would be a good thing.

One small semantic nitpick. Point 3 for Utsusemi on -ga's... PDT doesn't help in the slightest. Your point is valid, but you might want to change PDT to MDT or just leave it at DT with the assumption that you're using the right kind for the action at hand.

One small semantic nitpick. Point 3 for Utsusemi on -ga's... PDT doesn't help in the slightest. Your point is valid, but you might want to change PDT to MDT or just leave it at DT with the assumption that you're using the right kind for the action at hand.

-gas were just the first example that came to my head. And they were a bad one, my mistake. There are still plenty of physical moves that wipes shadows and ignore any protection they would give.

Our problem with damage taken is that mobs are using D400 weapons, have 500 attack and are limited at the minimum of 1.0 pdif. In this case, 500 def is capped def, but you are still taking anywhere between 300-500 damage each hit. It was a design mistake in the beggining of FFXI that wasnt corrected, and now is probably too late to be corrected. It would require reviewing the D and ATK of every mob of the game.

You did hit the point a little bit deeper than i have though - damage mitigation isnt important because it mitigates damage, but it is important because it conserves the back line mp. If you have infinite MP, you dont need damage mitigation, you just need enough HP to survive the time between cures landing.

And i was in a PLD/WAR only sky LS before quitting and coming back. Made me want to bang my head against a wall. It suffers terribily from what i mentioned - Crit + triple attack = dead tank.

Edited, Sep 10th 2010 2:31pm by TheKhory

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Khory

TybudX wrote:

The hardest part of this game is finding 5-17 other people who aren't retarded.

Lets get a example: Minhocao does hit a decently geared PLD for 450ish damage. Criticals are around 700. Even with 50% pdt, that means a PLD must be able to take 700 damage + Tp move and stay alive long enough for a Cure V to land. Another hit between o*hit moment and we are looking at 1k HP + tp move lost before a WHM has time to land a cure. That is a lot of HPs. I know that Minhocao isnt exaclty a light hitter, but it isnt by far the hardest hitting mob around.

Either way, i probably have exagerated a bit Minhocao damage. Change it to Chuckwa if you want. Lacovie. Briareus. Mannagal. Even Kirin, although Kirin doesnt do as much physical damage, the problem there is the tp spam. Like i said, it was just a example, the point still of the post still stands.

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Khory

TybudX wrote:

The hardest part of this game is finding 5-17 other people who aren't retarded.

One small semantic nitpick. Point 3 for Utsusemi on -ga's... PDT doesn't help in the slightest. Your point is valid, but you might want to change PDT to MDT or just leave it at DT with the assumption that you're using the right kind for the action at hand.

-gas were just the first example that came to my head. And they were a bad one, my mistake. There are still plenty of physical moves that wipes shadows and ignore any protection they would give.

Again, why I specifically mentioned leave it at DT and assume that they'll be using MDT or PDT as appropriate for the action. Each mob has to be tackled on a case-by-case basis. It's why I specifically stated it was a small semantic nitpick - the point you made was valid. Just the method to fight it was off.

I carry both my PDT and my MDT sets with me everywhere I go. Slowly working on maxing them out as time allows. Fortunately, both sets work for my BLU and my PLD with just small pieces that are one or the other.

TheKhory wrote:

Our problem with damage taken is that mobs are using D400 weapons, have 500 attack and are limited at the minimum of 1.0 pdif. In this case, 500 def is capped def, but you are still taking anywhere between 300-500 damage each hit. It was a design mistake in the beggining of FFXI that wasnt corrected, and now is probably too late to be corrected. It would require reviewing the D and ATK of every mob of the game.

This was why I mentioned changing the mechanic for extreme values of VIT over STR would be a way to help lower the base damage. If mob pDIF could drop below 1, we'd have more reason to care about VIT and Defense then we do now. Tweaking it would be VERY difficult, though, and that's why I think SE is trying to alleviate this through other methods.

TheKhory wrote:

And i was in a PLD/WAR only sky LS before quitting and coming back. Made me want to bang my head against a wall. It suffers terribily from what i mentioned - Crit + triple attack = dead tank.

I was in one of these, too. Until I "accidentally" came PLD/NIN to a Byakko fight. Only death was the SAM who had a hard on for pulling hate off the tanks. I held hate for 95% of the fight, too. After that, the shell switched over completely. At least they were open to the possibility when I shoved it in their faces...

I was in one of these, too. Until I "accidentally" came PLD/NIN to a Byakko fight. Only death was the SAM who had a hard on for pulling hate off the tanks. I held hate for 95% of the fight, too. After that, the shell switched over completely. At least they were open to the possibility when I shoved it in their faces...

Mine had me dead because the WHMs (all 3 of them) couldnt target through gear swap. Im glad i left that place.

____________________________

Khory

TybudX wrote:

The hardest part of this game is finding 5-17 other people who aren't retarded.

I was in one of these, too. Until I "accidentally" came PLD/NIN to a Byakko fight. Only death was the SAM who had a hard on for pulling hate off the tanks. I held hate for 95% of the fight, too. After that, the shell switched over completely. At least they were open to the possibility when I shoved it in their faces...

Mine had me dead because the WHMs (all 3 of them) couldnt target through gear swap. Im glad i left that place.

Yeah... I've had my share of those WHMs.... fortunately, I had a RDM and a WHM that were as progressive as I was and loved the fact I was pushing things. It worked great. I'm willing to admit I got lucky with that

I think I may have had Jelly Ring on. (Was fiddling with macros a bit.)

Should be able to use max melee damage taken (224 for myself, 314 for RNG, 309 for SAM) as the magnitude for damage, roughly.

And, it wasn't about proving anything; I was merely confused why your numbers seemed so off from my very recent experience. (If you're making up numbers for illustration purposes, you should really say so.)

* * *

I think there are already a large number of NMs which are difficult (for the average LS) using a single PLD/NIN to tank. Some are even difficult with two PLD/NIN co-tanking. Many NMs are easier to kite than tank, while a few can (and should be) distance tanked.

Even though I'm /NIN for them all, I have to say I am enjoying the variety of fights a lot--don't think I've ever had this much fun as PLD/WAR.

The point is, do we really need to focus on blood tanking and ask SE to give us more of that specifically? Or would adding monsters with more varied attacks and behavior--which naturally lead to more variations on how to tank--mean more fun to play as Paladin?

The point is, do we really need to focus on blood tanking and ask SE to give us more of that specifically? Or would adding monsters with more varied attacks and behavior--which naturally lead to more variations on how to tank--mean more fun to play as Paladin?

Why not have both? I love the varied challenges that ZNM first introduced and have been carried further (and better) with Abyssea NMs. I love being able to have to learn a new style of tanking, no matter how much or little variance exists between it and the other fights. And, I agree, this era of PLD tanking is much more fun and creative than any we've had before.

But, I wish that going toe to toe and going until one of us dropped while watching the area fill with our collective blood was more effective. Currently, this style doesn't even get considered by SE or the player base any more. And it'll take a mechanics tweak to give it the edge it needs. I can see why they don't want to (ramifications in changing something small, see 2-handed stat changes for an example or the changes about the same time to pDIF for another), but I'd love it if Defense and Vitality meant more than they do right now.